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 LEGO Company / LEGO Direct / 1105
1104  |  1106
Subject: 
Re: Concerns regarding Brick-o-Lizer™ User Agreement (was: Re: New stuff at shop.lego.com)
Newsgroups: 
lugnet.general, lugnet.lego.direct
Followup-To: 
lugnet.general
Date: 
Tue, 7 Nov 2000 22:50:48 GMT
Viewed: 
73 times
  
In lugnet.general, Jeff Elliott writes:
1) Are you sure the new colour is the SCALA gray, or even that the lightest
gray is the new gray?  I'm thinking of ordering one of these for plates,
and obviously I'd like more of the newest colour :)

No, I'm not sure; it was an educated guess.  However, I just spoke with
someone at LEGO who said the color wasn't recently new.  So I think it's a
reasonably good bet that it's either the LEGO SCALA light warm gray -- the
one that came out about 2-3 years ago, IIRC.


2) I'd guess that if Lego's legal text is too restrictive, we could do
the following:

  - use your mosaic generator to generate a 44x44 image in 5 colours
  - count the number of each plate
  - generate an image containing the right number of plates, and order it.
  - take apart Lego's set (since we're not prevented from decomposing it,
    I believe)
  - build a mosaic using your instructions.

Ah yes!  Jeff, that's brilliant!  Using a different mosaic generator to do
the real work prevents LEGO from owning the copyright to the instructions
for your mosaic*.  Instead, it leaves them owning the copyright on the
instructions for bands of gray.

Since the BoL UA doesn't say that the mosaic you assemble has to be the one
that BoL creates for you, and it doesn't say that you can't use an alternate
pixellator to create the real final image, this sounds like a genuine
loophole worth exploiting*.


I pretty much intend to do this anyway, to make images in different sizes
than 44x44 or multiples thereof.

What do you plan to make?  I can't wait to see more large mosaics!  BTW, did
you see the awesome Mona Lisa that Eric Harshbarger recently made?


In particular, the "Lego Mosaic Product" is not to be used for blah blah...
but since they don't explicitly mention the component parts, and since Lego
is clearly made of component parts, I think that we're in the clear there.

I think so too*.


3) I expect we could convince Lego to alter their legal text a bit.

I'm not holding my breath for major changes, but I won't be surprised if a
few clarifications come soon.  With all due respect to LEGO, I really don't
think the agreement was thought through very carefully*.


Most of it is pretty reasonable.

I agree*.  And if they don't want people to resell the raw bricks, I suppose
that's not completely unreasonable -- at least I can kinda understand why they
might think that might be in their best interests.  It's just the part about
disallowing re-use outside of the proscribed context that I find personally
objectionable -- especially not being able to display the mosaic on my own
personal website without LEGO's permission -- if I understand the agreement*.

--Todd

* Disclaimer:  I am not a lawyer.


4) I couldn't help but notice that on the printout, LEGO is not marked
(tm) anywhere.  Odd.

Jeff Elliott



Message has 2 Replies:
  Re: Concerns regarding Brick-o-Lizer™ User Agreement (was: Re: New stuff at shop.lego.com)
 
(...) In fact, doesn't the description of the product even talk about taking it apart to make other images? This would suggest that TLC's intent is that you be able to use the parts to make other images. Frank (24 years ago, 7-Nov-00, to lugnet.general)
  The Right To Exploit (WAS: Concerns regarding Brick-o-Lizer User Agreement)
 
Todd Lehman <lehman@javanet.com> wrote in article <G3oFGo.JED@lugnet.com>... (...) it. (...) it, (...) do (...) one (...) alternate (...) Todd, your last statement has an odd ring to it. Perhaps you can elaborate. You are a person who (rightly so) (...) (24 years ago, 9-Nov-00, to lugnet.off-topic.debate)

Message is in Reply To:
  Re: Concerns regarding Brick-o-Lizer™ User Agreement (was: Re: New stuff at shop.lego.com)
 
(...) <snip some cogent questions> (...) I'd make the following comments on your post, Todd: 1) Are you sure the new colour is the SCALA gray, or even that the lightest gray is the new gray? I'm thinking of ordering one of these for plates, and (...) (24 years ago, 7-Nov-00, to lugnet.general, lugnet.lego.direct)

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